DIY LED Veg Setup

[PwnanObrien]

Whats up dudes. Couldnt be happier with T5s in Veg, but the time has come to bring down the power bill and refrain from buying new bulbs every few months. Quick history: in addition to the of course personal-use-only organic indoor hobby, I grow and sell live saltwater coral. The hobbies are actually extremely similar and if you possess skills to grow quality buds, growing coral is right up your alley, and surprisingly, just as if not more profitable than small to medium scale commercial growing.
Anyway heres the setup
Heatsinks: The foundation of the build. Ive done probably a dozen or so builds in the past and always used heatsinkusa sinks or similar. They get the job done but are bulky, heavy and are ghetto looking. I used CNCReef heatsinks on the last LED build for the fishtank, and will be this time as well. Theyre only 0.75" thick, and imo they look better than 99% of the expensive, low quality commercial led fixtures from China that I see in most grow shops these days.
LEDs: not sure yet, but will prob go with CREEs. I need to look at some spectral graphs to find the correct NM selection for Veg growth. Any suggestions/recommendations on diodes is welcomed.
Drivers: will either be going with Thomas Research dimmable drivers( prob wont use the dimming setting), or some type of WIFI driver.
Mounting options: debating on hanging over the canopy from ceiling, or rigging up some sort of platform.

A few pics of some past builds Ive done, and my staple strain Raskal OG:cool:. Thanks for looking.Comments/suggestions welcome.

 

[Shamanfarmer]

Right on man, I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do. I'm a bit of an aquarium nut as well, mostly freshwater though. I've done quite a bit of research on leds for reef lighting and have been impressed with what I've seen. It seems that if leds can work for coral there's gotta be a way to make them work for plants.
3 watt Crees I'm assuming? How many watts total? Are you planning on using optics? Seems you could get better penetration with them.

 

[PwnanObrien]

Nice dude! Ever thought of getting into Saltwater? Either way,fresh or Salt, its pretty epic to burn one and stare at the fishtank. Youre right:the Reef industry is lightyears ahead of the LED grow industry. Its unfortunate because alot of guys arent believers in LED lit grows simply because theyve only seen the results from the sub par fixtures plaguing this hobby. With DIY you can stack a grip of quality LEDs in a fixture to get the same PAR readings from HPS&MH without buying new bulbs for roughly 10 years. For now, going to convert my Veg, but will most likely totally convert the Bloom tents as well later on. Ill prob go with 3W CREEs, but I heard about some RGBW(red,green,blue,white) multi chip leds that allow you to blend each chip independently via WiFi driver to obtain the spectrum youre after..Ill be looking into it today. Watts total: Not sure yet. Im terrible at Math. Optics: I probably wont use optics since the canopy will be inches from the lights and I want to optimize my usable spread instead of focusing the light. I dont Veg my girls out past 12" either, If I did, Id prob have to use optics. Thanks for the thoughts bro.

 

[Shamanfarmer]

I've done a couple reef tanks in the past, they're a lot of fun but a bit expensive for mu current budget. I've got a 7 gallon bowfront sitting around that i've been contemplating setting up as a nano reef with diy led lighting. We'll see.

Any progress on your project?

 

[PwnanObrien]

I've done a couple reef tanks in the past, they're a lot of fun but a bit expensive for mu current budget. I've got a 7 gallon bowfront sitting around that i've been contemplating setting up as a nano reef with diy led lighting. We'll see.

Any progress on your project?

Nice dude. Keep me posted. Im still looking at some spectral graphs to try and figure out which leds Ill need. Ill be sure to update as soon as I get them selected and ordered.

 

[tanan]

FW plant guy here. Have had tremendous success with Crees XTE/XREs. Thinking of getting into cannabis growing too and have a couple of Crees laying around (by couple I mean around a 100 XTEs 6500, 20 x royal blue, 20 x 660nm reds, 5 XML T6s). Got buces very cheap and made quite a lot selling them up. Have a 3' x 5' x 12' store room empty and waiting to be set up. I am hooked to this thread.

 

[seaslug]

Verical.com is Arrow's surplus site. I already bought three CXA3590 @ 5000K from there and then saw CXA3070 at a good price. Use Cree PCT software to compare flux between series (because they use different test currents).
https://www.verical.com/pd/cree-led-cxa3070-0000-000n0hab50f-879109

I already had the aluminum for this and I'm getting the driver from Mouser:

At this low current (350mA dimmable to half that), the Cree Product Characterization Tool online software shows very little difference in the brightness of the CXA3590 CD over CXA3070 AB bin. I had to divide the 72V data in half because Cree didn't fill in the spreadsheet for 36V CXA3590.


I previously bought some CXB3590 5000K (from Jerry at Kingbrite) to make a set of these:

 

[boshuter]

Hey PO, where did you get those enclosures?